kudos and observation

kudos and observation

[Neil W. Van Dyke]

I appreciate all the work that the developers have been putting into
Guile, especially in the last year or so.

The work that must be done is not as glamorous as it was when RMS first
announced the Guile project.  The current developers also have the
burden of numerous legacy compatibility issues.  This makes their
persistence all the more admirable, and 1.6 will be a huge improvement
over 1.4.

I'd like to vocalize an observation I suspect many people have had...

But first, a quick story: Last week, a friend who is an especially
productive contributor to the CL free-software community expressed
frustration with the latest round of flamewars there, and half-jokingly
asked about converting to Scheme.  I reminded him of Guile, and he went
to skim the Guile email lists for not the first time.  He quickly
decided that Guile still had its own suboptimal organizational issues,
and his interest in CL was renewed.

My observation, as a relative outsider to Guile, is that not all the
people who are doing the bulk of the work on Guile are having a
proportionate say in Guile's direction.

Lack of say is a disempowerment of programmers, and, once there is the
inevitable disagreement on points that the disempowered programmers care
about, this creates morale problems.  All of which seems antithetical to
the spirit of free software.

The "chief programmer" organizational model for development teams can
sometimes work well.  But, if that's the model the Guile developers are
trying to use, there's morale evidence that it's not working perfectly.
Given Guile's sometimes pained history, it seems all the more important
to encourage the people who are enthusiastic about contributing to
Guile, and to make sure that everyone is working together well.

-- 
                                                        Neil W. Van Dyke
                                             http://www.neilvandyke.org/

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Re: kudos and observation

[Thien-Thi Nguyen]

   From: "Neil W. Van Dyke" <nwv@neilvandyke.org>
   Date: Sat, 30 Mar 2002 02:25:21 -0500

   My observation, as a relative outsider to Guile, is that not
   all the people who are doing the bulk of the work on Guile
   are having a proportionate say in Guile's direction.

this is difficult to measure in any case.

   Lack of say is a disempowerment of programmers, and, once
   there is the inevitable disagreement on points that the
   disempowered programmers care about, this creates morale
   problems.  All of which seems antithetical to the spirit of
   free software.

well, you're sliding from disproportionate to lack but i follow
you.  what is the ideal proportion?  how do you determine this?

thi

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Re: kudos and observation

[Neil W. Van Dyke]

Thien-Thi Nguyen <ttn@giblet.glug.org> writes at 01:41 03-Apr-2002 -0800:
>    Lack of say is a disempowerment of programmers, and, once
>    there is the inevitable disagreement on points that the
>    disempowered programmers care about, this creates morale
>    problems.  All of which seems antithetical to the spirit of
>    free software.
> 
> well, you're sliding from disproportionate to lack but i follow
> you.  what is the ideal proportion?  how do you determine this?

I don't think there is any simple rule, especially for a project like
Guile, which has some clear organizational hierarchy but a strong
volunteer flavor overall.

When making decisions in a group like this, I think people in general
tend to negotiate the proportions subtly for each situation.  More a
collective art than a science.

There's few enough core Guile developers that there should be little
need for edicts.  The team is small enough for everyone to be heard in a
discussion.  Also, in those cases in which consensus on an issue is not
quickly reached based on the merits of the issue alone, everyone on the
team recognizes that compromise is sometimes necessary to move forward
and to maintain a cooperative tone.

(Just an opinion.  I really hesitated to say anything at all, since I'm
not a core Guile developer myself.  But I hated to see unresolved team
dynamics glitches that probably require only the slightest prodding to
fix.)

-- 
                                                        Neil W. Van Dyke
                                             http://www.neilvandyke.org/

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Re: kudos and observation

[Thien-Thi Nguyen]

   From: "Neil W. Van Dyke" <nwv@neilvandyke.org>
   Date: Wed, 3 Apr 2002 08:17:44 -0500

   When making decisions in a group like this, I think people in
   general tend to negotiate the proportions subtly for each
   situation.  More a collective art than a science.

this kind of constant negotiation is difficult to scale, and some
(actually most) people really aren't comfortable w/ negotiation
at all.  in the job context where there are processes already in
place to alleviate these issues, negotiation is best done up
front (at interview time).

is guile maintenance (or more generally any free software project
collaboration) a job?  that's hard to say.  i know that i put in
lots of hours for some tenuous future benefit (being able to
compile THUD modules), which is kind of like a job...

   There's few enough core Guile developers that there should be
   little need for edicts.  The team is small enough for everyone
   to be heard in a discussion.  Also, in those cases in which
   consensus on an issue is not quickly reached based on the
   merits of the issue alone, everyone on the team recognizes
   that compromise is sometimes necessary to move forward and to
   maintain a cooperative tone.

the TODO list is pretty daunting for a small team, and i imagine
doubly daunting for a large team that's unorganized.  personally,
i'm trying to encourage documentation of our current processes so
that we attain the minimal self-awareness necessary to be able to
teach that process to the new blood (and improve the process in
the process!).

   (Just an opinion.  I really hesitated to say anything at all,
   since I'm not a core Guile developer myself.  But I hated to
   see unresolved team dynamics glitches that probably require
   only the slightest prodding to fix.)

well the ancients say a good doctor cures your illness and the
best doctor prevents illness in the first place, so a little
fixing w/ a little forward-fixing seems "indicated" here.

somewhat related, you sent `when' and `unless' and have
contributed other useful patches.  do you have any interest in
guile repo write privs?  (this is not an offer per se, just a
feeler.)

thi

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Re: kudos and observation

[Neil W. Van Dyke]

Thien-Thi Nguyen <ttn@giblet.glug.org> writes at 13:34 03-Apr-2002 -0800:
> contributed other useful patches.  do you have any interest in
> guile repo write privs?  (this is not an offer per se, just a
> feeler.)

Thank you for asking, but, though in the past I spent close to 1000
hours coding in Guile Scheme, I don't have enough time right now to
contribute meaningfully.

For now, I've had to switch to a different Scheme implementation for my
work, so that will be the one to which I have occasion to make any
modest contributions.

But I really do want to see Guile development continue, so that I can
use it more in the future.  Hence my latest kibitzing.

I would also be tempted immensely by good Guile GTK2/Pango/Libart
support (and it must be free of Mono and Gnome), but that's perhaps
another matter.

-- 
                                                        Neil W. Van Dyke
                                             http://www.neilvandyke.org/

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Re: kudos and observation

[Thien-Thi Nguyen]

   From: "Neil W. Van Dyke" <nwv@neilvandyke.org>
   Date: Thu, 4 Apr 2002 00:18:44 -0500

   For now, I've had to switch to a different Scheme implementation for
   my work, so that will be the one to which I have occasion to make any
   modest contributions.

i'd be interested in learning which other scheme and why you switched
(perhaps this info can be used to improve guile).

   I would also be tempted immensely by good Guile GTK2/Pango/Libart
   support (and it must be free of Mono and Gnome), but that's perhaps
   another matter.

yes.  there is room for a Wrapping Czar in the project, someone whose
goal would be to actively develop and integrate g-wrap, rationalize (and
possibly advance a unified interface to) the various linkages available,
and promote the wrapping approach w/ some well-chosen examples.  these
are difficult things to do.

thi

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